Local veterans to be remembered

ODESSA - Thanks to John Hardt and the Fronen Steppdecker Odessa Quilt Club, 254 crosses with sewn rosettes will adorn the graves of veterans at the cemetery off Cemetery Road Memorial Day weekend.

To celebrate Memorial Day, Hardt and a handful of other veterans will place 24 flags on light poles on First Avenue and 254 crosses on graves at the cemetery.

On Monday, May 27, a public service to honor Odessa's veterans will be held at 10 a.m. at Odessa Memorial Healthcare Center. Heritage Church pastor Josh McLachlan will give a brief message.

A 21-gun salute and the playing of Taps will follow the service.

A flag dedication ceremony will be held at the cemetery at 11 a.m.. Flags will be raised to honor veterans Paul Hopp, Don Schibel and Steve Siegel, all of whom passed away this year.

"In Odessa we support our veterans," Hardt said. "They have given much to our country. I'm afraid that if for even one year we don't honor them, we will lose Memorial Day forever. We can't let patriotism die."

After graduating from Wilson Creek High School in 1964, Hardt was drafted into the Army. He served as a military police officer with the 127th MP Company for two years.

In 1967-68 he was stationed in Vietnam where he guarded prisoners of war, provided security at docks and supervised Vietnamese citizens who unloaded American military ships.

Upon his discharge from the Army in 1968, Hardt joined the American Legion and later the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

"In Vietnam I witnessed a lot of waste by the Army," Hardt said. "It was a war machine and big government got rich."

Despite that, Hardt was proud to serve his country.

He received a warm welcome upon his return home to Wilson Creek.

"I had short hair when I got home so was treated fine," he said. "It was the hippies that were treated much differently."

Hardt earned his pilot's license and crop dusted for a while before moving to California as a mechanic for United Airlines.

In 1976, he moved to Odessa where he now holds the position of secretary/treasurer for both the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Odessa's remembrance proceedings aren't the only Lincoln County Memorial Day programs planned.

The Lincoln County Historical Society will host a Memorial Day ceremony, off Mountain View Cemetery Road west of Davenport, at 10 a.m. Monday, May 27.

Managing Editor Drew Lawson contributed to this report.